The Remington Rolling Block was one of the most widely successful and popular military rifles of the late 1800s, and its development began with the Remington Split Breech carbine during the American Civil War. The concept was independently conceived by two different engineers - one was Leonard Ge...

The story of the USS Niagara is quite an odd little corner of history. It was a ship built in 1877 and acquired by the US Navy in 1898, fitted out as a water distillery and supply ship. That fitting out was not actually done by the Navy, though, but rather by a group of wealth private citizens in...

The M1878 was the last new rifle produced by the Sharps company before it went out of business in 1881. It was the invention of none other than German gun designer Hugo Borchardt, better known for his C93 Borchardt automatic pistol (generally considered the first commercially successful automatic...

This video has been updated from its original form to fix translation issues and to clarify that Nepal was not, in fact, a British colony.

Originally published January 10, 2017.

Long a mysterious unknown member of the Martini family, the Nepalese Gahendra rifles finally became available in ...

It may look like we're only interested in military arms, but that's not the case. We're mostly interested in military guns, but there are plenty of other interesting corners of the firearms world to explore too.

While we were visiting one particular collector, we ended up having a great time t...

The Chap pulls out his Swiss Peabody and takes it out for a little blat. The Peabody was adopted as a stopgap before the Vetterli rifles came on line, and fires the same 10.4x38mm rimfire cartridge. It's basically pretty much an external hammer tipping-block Martini rifle

"I remember the first rifle ever given to me by my grandfather. It was a Werder's Original, and I was four"...

The Chap takes his Bavarian 1869 Werder in 11x50R out to the range for a shoot, and then takes it back to the workshop to give its insides a good look-over.

The Werder is rather th...

Following a helpful suggestion, The Chap takes his GoPro and makes a plexiglass sideplate for his Bavarian 1869 Werder rifle, and gets another chance to talk about it. It is his favourite rifle, after all.

In this video, he goes through the entire operating cycle. The Bloke, while editing this...

Since the available .577/480" ammo didn't fit in the available Martini-Henry rifle when making the Great British Rates of Fire Disaster Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3YiJDgddWk

... a friend of the channel who goes by the name of Stan_Da_Bout on the Army Rumour Service offered to...

In an earlier vid on the Früwirth carbine, many people remarked the offset firing pin. Here's the reason for it... Hint: it's in the original 11.5x36R ammo.

The Chap takes a look at a Früwirth M1872 Austrian Gendarmerie Carbine. Not a Fruhwirth, Frühwirth, Fruwirt, Frühwirt or any other wierd spelling, but Früwirth. This was a critical developmental step on the way to the Kropatschek M1886.

Bono estente! Down in Bella Italia, Bloke meets up with Kevin of SBAM shooting for a spot of shooting and banter on the range. BotR combining with SBAM is a bit like crossing the beams in Ghostbusters (the original one), and disaster would have to ensue. By definition. Ammo didn't turn up, and wh...

The Chap takes you through the 1871 Belgian Rifle, a very Winchester High Wall falling block type of single shot black powder affair, built for the Belgian Civil Guard and widely adopted in South America

The Chap takes you through how original French Chassepot M1866 paper needlefire cartridges were made, and how he does it. Contains lashings of black powder, and better-than-a-Dryse cartridges!

The Chap takes a look at his muzzleloading Swedish 1815/38 flintlock musket, and sees what it can do on the range.

Black powder can be fun!

Those big old rimfires are wallhangers no more. Learn how to get them booming once again!

Here is my nifty way of making what you need and without expensive tools and basic machining skills. Applicable for feeding not only Milbank-Amslers large and small, but also Swiss Peabodys, Vetterlis, W...

The Chap presents a very good, neat way to make paper tubes for your Dreyse or Chassepot needlefire rifle!

Earlier videos on the topic:

Full luxury Chassepot version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iahThVlF7QI
Simple Chassepot version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr1cN9FXA9E

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Following on from the Chap's earlier vid on getting a Swiss Milbank Amsler barking again, this time he delves in true BotR nerd style into the surprisingly fast conception, modification and adoption of the Milbank-Amsler trapdoor / tabatière system by the Swiss at the close of the 1860s. Both the...

A quick review of the main features of a lovely Martini Henry MkI rifle, featuring some 2nd and 3rd pattern upgrades. I'm sure the real afficionados will have more to say.

By popular request, here is my attempt at a mad minute with the "lightning rifle". It took a while to get it running due to mechanical issues and sourcing reliable ammo components but we got there in the end!

3:10 - Shut up and show me the mad minute!

Organised by @Riflechair in Canada, Bloke and Chap attempt the Cabin Fever Challenge 2023 in Division 5 (Muzzleloading) at 50m on an 8" target. How did they get on with Chap's French 1859 Chasseur carbine, loading from as-original-as-possible paper cartridges?

Full info on the Challenge here...

Sorry for the clickbaity title. Here we have a gunsmith-made Swiss Jagdstutzer Martini rifle in 7.5x55 Swiss GP11. Kinda as close as you'll get to a real Martini-Henry sniper rifle, which is inexplicably contained in the game Battlefield 1 BF1 for no apparent reason...

The gentlemen of the Kentucky Victorian Riflemen instigated a 5 round speed loading challenge this year and invited Chappy to participate. He of course stepped up with a French rifled musket in a manly calibre!

Here we have a heroic guest contribution featuring a Snider three band rifle all the way from Alberta Canada which came out of an unrelated competition, however it was too good not to share with you as part of our single shot military black powder cartridge rifle series. Huzzah for Bob!